How She Gave Up The Food That Slowly Kills

Can you rise to the challenge like food writer, Megan Kimble did? For one whole year, Kimble decided to steer clear of the processed food group (aka almost everything in stores now days), and provided insight of her journey through an interview done by, Kate Bratskier with The Huffington Post. Kimble documented her journey, the lessons she learned and the changes she made in her new book, “Unprocessed: My City-Dwelling Year of Reclaiming Real Food“.

-What was your biggest challenge throughout the year?

Going out, for sure. There’s such a social aspect of food; so much of eating is being with friends and partaking in what others are partaking in. Forever, humans have bonded over the sharing of food. It’d be really hard to meet up with friends, where everyone would be having pizza. It was really hard to be professional and to go to work functions — you don’t want to talk about what you eat with everyone. That was definitely the hardest part.

-Did you drink any alcohol?

I drank beer and wine. I tried to drink only beers from breweries I could identify. For me, the premise for what I considered unprocessed was theoretically being able to make it at my house. I could have brewed wine or beer at home. I made mead at home. It’s basically the lowest-cost alcohol you can make on your own. Part of the bargain of this whole thing was figuring out how to not put my life on hold. I wanted to try my best to make sure the drinks weren’t processed, but also wanted to be able to connect with people.

-Did you have any slip-ups during the course of the year?

Of course. I was a single when I started the year and then wanted to start dating. I went out with this guy who sort of ordered food for us in this really macho, annoying way and then food came and I didn’t know what to do. It was a sushi roll. White rice is processed, but I decided to make an exception. I immediately regretted it, especially because later in the date I found out that the guy didn’t believe that global warming was a real thing. I write about food and the environment so that’s kind of a deal breaker. What are you gonna do? When you eat out, it’s so hard to know what’s in your food. I’d ask so many questions, but at some point you have to move on and hope for the best.

-What was the first thing you ate when your year was up?

A Sonoran hot dog and a Diet Coke. The Diet Coke tasted terrible after a year without soda. It tasted like straight chemicals. Actually, I’ve totally kicked the soda habit — it just doesn’t taste good to me anymore. I used to eat more snack foods, like packaged cookies, chips and stuff like that. Now that snack food genre stuff doesn’t make me feel good or keep me full. That was a nice sort of side effect of the year — a lot of these processed foods are still kind of invisible to me and my cravings.

About The Author

Texas raised with southern ways, transplanted into a San Diego, California daze! I have an itch for adventure and an undeniable want for leaps of faith! Looking for inspiration in each and every day and sharing a few Happy Healthy Wealthy Life Hacks I've found along the way :)
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